Hi guys! I've still been slaving away on Braillemon, and I'm excited to tell you guys that I *might* release a super awesome early beta for people to play around with that actually resembles the original game!

I've added a couple features as well:

-Text and images for people who are visually impaired or sighted. Basically, it prints all the text that is spouted out by the Text to Speech for those who want to play the game and have some sight. In addition, Pokemon sprites are now in the game so that people who are visually impaired can view the sprites and see them, without having to listen to just the descriptions. Doesn't change much for totally blind players, but still.Here's an image for anyone reading this that has some sight:- MANY unnoticed glitches were patched, including ones with the shop, pokemon spawning and especially battles.- Some actual areas to explore in!- The rival actually is in the game now!- The game greatly resembles the original. There are some map changes but they're not anything that's too different from the originals. I made things line up more in a grid as opposed to the original to make it be easier to find objects, as well as opting out of the use of ledges in the game (reason being that I think ledges would be too difficult to detect since they're one-way obstacles... I COULD try but I think there would be issues with it regardless)

The game only covers the first two towns currently but there's actually quite a bit you can do.

I have upgraded to GameMaker Studio which means that the file is A LOT BIGGER but it also means it runs super fast. There's noticable improvement in runtime speed.

PLEASE remember guys that I'm basically a one person team with the exception of a few critical parts so it's a ton of work, and I WILL be busy in the next year because 1) I got a $350 deal to work on a commission for something and 2) I have a full time job starting in January. So updates won't be crazy often but I WILL update my blog to make sure that you guys still know I'm working on the project.

Nice really. As big fan of classics, retro 8-bit games / music it's great information. Respect for you really and thanks for your work!Tell me only it will be supporting NVDA, I hate using SAPI haha, yeah, really.

I think it should support the current sapi5 and the older sapi 4 that was used in 0.0.0.5, so I could at least use the jaws voices. Also, I'd like it if, in addition to the original cries, it should also use the "vocal" ones from the anime. that would help with pronounsiation as the voice I use (microsoft anna) is stupid enough to pronounce one of the pokemon as "hor-se-a, even though the a in her name is silent, and most tts engines can't even say pikachu correctly.

IWell the demo won't have either because both of us have been too busy to work on that, but Kyle has been especially busy with college, and the save file work is more imperative and will be addressed first. Right now saving has been disabled temporarily as we develop the new file type. (This doesn't matter too horribly since only the first 30 or so minutes of the game is completed).

The anime voices will not be used since they're annoying as all hell. The names in the game have been modified to make sure pronunciation will be right, but it still screws up sometimes. Such is life.

The major problem with connecting to screen readers is that screen readers do not have a function that allows you to just "read a bit of text" and we have to figure out how to make that work. Another problem is that nvda is programmed in python as well as other programs that directly communicate with nvda while our dlls are written in C++. Anyone with any information regarding reconciling the two would be greatly appreciated and will be credited. Sapi 4 support can be added.

I haven't seen any glitches regarding the PC but I will investigate - the shop glitch wasn't noticed until two days ago and a glitch I patched yesterday made it impossible to obtain items if you had nothing in your bag. If you can tell me more about it as well as a save file then it will help a lot.

Expect a release by Christmas. I will notify if there is a delay, but otherwise it should be up by then.

Hi @Daigonite, that's awesome news, I'm really excited to try this new version when it gets released!I don't have any experience in programming, but I've found something for you called universal speech,it was developed by Quentinc, should work with all screen readers and should work with c/c++ as well(at least according to the readme).Hope it works for you, good luck with the development!http://quentinc.net/download.php?fn=dat … Speech.zip

another note in regard to the anim voices is that for each pokemon they weren't always the same. Initially for example magnamite's voice sounded robotic and later it was replaced by a human so not too good of consistency there. Keep up the hard work.

Quentin C.'s Universal Speech API is a very good choice.It does require you to get his permission if you are selling your game.If that works out, wonderful.If not you can still interact with NVDA through nvdaControllerClient32.dll.It is a C DLL and has about 5 functions available to let you tell it what to say and when to cancel speech.Other screen readers provide similar APIs.

Yeah, I'm trying to avoid any sort of contract or requirement from other people as much as possible. Working with NVDA's native communication DLL is possible though. I'll look through the source of SpeakString and see if I can update it to include at least NVDA support. I think I'll install the screenreader myself for testing purposes as well.

Also, Happy Holidays! (It's not quite Christmas yet). You know, there's actually a Pokemon version of Santa Claus. It's called Delibird, but it's not in Braillemon yet. Wait? What's that? Delibird seems to have a present for everyone! It's zipped up in this file right here!

Have fun, guys! Let me know if there are any glitches. Please don't ask for advice on "what to do next" though, the game is very similar to Pokemon Blue/Red and if you're having that much difficulty you can probably look it up online lol

Hi.I've found a bug.I started out fine with a charmander. Completed the passel quest, then went back to varidian city. I went to the poki mart to bye some pokeballs.I wrote that I wanted to bye 3 pokeballs and the game closed. No error or anything, it just closed.

Hi.I think this is an amazing game and really can't wait for the full thing.Oh I have one question, in the walk through I read, I'd not recommend it if you don't want spoilers, but to no where to go it's quite good, so up to you if you want to use one or not, anyway I read in the walk through that there is a potion inside your PC when you start out, it doesn't seem to be there, is this on purpose?

Hi.Found another bug.I was walking in route to with a starter pokemon, sorry I can't remember which one, (maybe bringing the logs back would be a good idea?) when i came across a pokemon and went to run away, I managed to escape fine, but then the music just turned off. The only music that would play is the pokemon encounter music.When you go back out of root 2 and back in again, the music starts up fine. But when you run away again, it stops.

Oh and what's with the strange singing in the first town? the very first one, with two houses and prof oak's lab?It's weird lol.In the beginning I couldn't hear it, but then i heard it, hmm maybe a ghost who likes to sing is haunting my copy of the game? aaa scary.

Hi.Well, first,I would recommend you Google, Pokemon red or blue text walk through.Hopefully that will help you.

If this isn't helpful sorry but it's the best I can remember.

first, you kneed to go outside you're house.Then find the route 1.When you try to leave to route 1, prof oak, will stop you and you'll hear a scene from him telling you that he has 3 Pokemon and that you and your rival can take one.Once that has happened, find the table with the Pokemon on it and choose one.

The way you do this is listen to Sapi saying that it's a table that professor oak keeps his Pokemon on, then press enter, you'll hear a description of the Pokemon, if you don't want that one, down arrow to no, then take a couple steps left and press enter.

Once you've chosen your Pokemon, you will battle your rival, just use scratch to win.If you find your Pokemon is low on health, you can use the single potion you have to get all it's HP (hit points( back.

After that, go out the door, and find route 1 again, now you will be able to leave and enter route 1.

Please find a text walk through because I know my explaining isn't that good smile.

Keys that are important in the game:up down left right, will walk your character in those directions and will help in menus.d will give you directions to certain things on the map, warning! do not take the directions as the only thing on the map, some things either on purpose or because the person who made the game have been left out, you'll knead to walk around to find them.It's a little tricky but hopefully you'll get used to it.b and n, will increase and decrease sapi's speech.The space bar, will give you a menu that you can take a look at, in this menu are options like, Pokemon, items, trainer info, save and exit menu.Note: You cannot save just yet.

This is so cool, I love new update. If i can try to suggests something more.

1. Exploration: Can you add stereo output to the actual gameplay to have everything in fully stereo? it's sticked with movement and interaction. It will be to hear the river si somewhere on the right or left, or other thing around you. Also. You can add wind sounds from left [west] / right [east]and lower from down [south] and higher from up [north] to let players where their can turn and find patches to go. This is really frustrating me i must search everything step by step and remembering the whole map. Ofcourse, i can use coordinates, which well, i hate. Numbers are mostly annoying so this is why playing with checking the position of everything and position of your character is only making me to close that type of game.

2. Sounds: Adding sounds to the menues like scrolling through the menus, closing / cancelling, opening / accepting. Sounds of scrolling text like in old RPGs and sounds when text will appear. Also, reediting the sounds making these more normalised to play fairly better. For now these are too loud or too quiet.

Bugs:-Clicking on bed is bugged, try to click on 'yes' multiple times.-Clicking arrow keys really fast makes fight outsde of the battle places, like, I entered the town and encountered the enemy. Also, two music tracks started playing at once.-Music is playing no matter if another music will play, and i mean these short music pieces when you gain a level for example. My suggestion is to stop the background music letting the level music plays and after that start with the previous file, or making a fade out / in.

That's everything for now, I beleve it will be usefull to post that kind of thingies here.

I don't even start out in a house though. i start out in the little place where the computer, nurse, and pokemon trainer are. I've followed the walls around completely, so unless there is a portal dead center or something there's no way out. I named my rival, then I was in that place, and like I said I haven't found a way out yet. I'll keep looking, and by the way I have saved a game so that's apparently working now?

Hi kenWdowny.I don't think you have the latest version?Look about five or six post back from this one, and you should see a post from dagonight. Click on the link in that post and you'll come to a dropbox page, download that folder, and you'll have what we are messing around with at the moment. Smile.

Some changes for testing are due to migrating to Gamemaker Studio so there will be some weird issues involving some things that weren't problems in Braillemon's original incarnation.

Just as a note, 9 times out of 10, an error will be the same regardless of what pokemon you choose as your starter. The only exception would be if there is a special event that changes depending on what starter you get (pretty much only events involving your rival). Also, there are three pokemon on the table. Sounds like you're all picking Charmander lol so check them out

brad wrote:

Hi.I've found a bug.I started out fine with a charmander. Completed the passel quest, then went back to varidian city. I went to the poki mart to bye some pokeballs.I wrote that I wanted to bye 3 pokeballs and the game closed. No error or anything, it just closed.

The game will push out an error if it closes due to an error. No error list document though, but it will pop up in another window. Hmm, I will look into this. You might have accidentally closed the game though because now in GM studio you can't block the X button...

brad wrote:

Hi.Found another bug.I was walking in route to with a starter pokemon, sorry I can't remember which one, (maybe bringing the logs back would be a good idea?) when i came across a pokemon and went to run away, I managed to escape fine, but then the music just turned off. The only music that would play is the pokemon encounter music.When you go back out of root 2 and back in again, the music starts up fine. But when you run away again, it stops.

Lol I patched this already, it should work in the updated download link.

Regarding your other statement, the only thing I can think of is either the water sound (which is bugged right now) or the "time sound" which is the background loop that plays depending on what time it is, either birds or crickets.

seal wrote:

Bugs:-Clicking on bed is bugged, try to click on 'yes' multiple times.

I'll look into this.

-Clicking arrow keys really fast makes fight outsde of the battle places, like, I entered the town and encountered the enemy. Also, two music tracks started playing at once.

Do you know exactly where this happened? I think I might know the problem here, but I need to know exactly where it happened.

-Music is playing no matter if another music will play, and i mean these short music pieces when you gain a level for example.

I need to investigate how to "pause" music", but currently I'm gonna keep the fanfare the way it is right now just because in the original game, what happens is that it mutes one sound clip and plays that one, and then when it ends it unmutes it. This is actually a limitation of the hardware on the Gameboy but nonetheless I agree with you, but there's not much that can be done about it.

Also, on the potion in the PC, since the bag can hold infinite items, it makes the PC obsolete. Thus, a potion is in your inventory at start.

1. Exploration: Can you add stereo output to the actual gameplay to have everything in fully stereo? it's sticked with movement and interaction. It will be to hear the river si somewhere on the right or left, or other thing around you. Also. You can add wind sounds from left [west] / right [east]and lower from down [south] and higher from up [north] to let players where their can turn and find patches to go. This is really frustrating me i must search everything step by step and remembering the whole map. Ofcourse, i can use coordinates, which well, i hate. Numbers are mostly annoying so this is why playing with checking the position of everything and position of your character is only making me to close that type of game.

I intend to look into this. I transferred to Game Maker Studio which has a new audio engine and the "legacy" engine from the previous game maker editions. The sounds themselves no longer have panning options available without an external editor but there may be a way to use code to pan the sounds. Not sure how I'm gonna do north/south though...

KenWDowney wrote:

I don't even start out in a house though. i start out in the little place where the computer, nurse, and pokemon trainer are. I've followed the walls around completely, so unless there is a portal dead center or something there's no way out. I named my rival, then I was in that place, and like I said I haven't found a way out yet. I'll keep looking, and by the way I have saved a game so that's apparently working now?